


Chris

by DaintilyMoreoverWhims



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaintilyMoreoverWhims/pseuds/DaintilyMoreoverWhims
Summary: An attempt at Proper Writing™. As with anything I write I have come to hate it, but there you go.Rated T for a violence and a small amount of swearing.





	Chris

"Can you see the elephant? Here's a clue: it's hiding behind the letter 'E'! Say hello, elepha-"

But then Mike turned off the portable TV. He asked why I was watching, told me it was for babies. I nodded, but said nothing. I wasn't watching it for the content.

Chris Dauleroy. That's the name of the presenter. He's been doing this kind of thing for seven years now, season after season, on as many children's shows as he could find time for. He's tall, blond, brown eyes, legs like stilts. 43 now. Married a woman called Joyce Something-or-other a few years ago.

When he was 17, and I was 15, we kissed behind a tree at Garrowhill station.

"There's a campfire outside needs tendin' to. Are you just gonna keep sittin' there?", asked Mike.

He said it was fun, kissing near where people are. Honestly it scared the shit out of me. I remember how I struggled to keep my feet still, shuffling minutely with anxiety. I cut my foot on a piece of old bottle lying on the ground, just as he slid his hands around my hips. He joked that I'd done it as an excuse. It certainly killed the mood.

"Sure, just give me a minute.", I replied.

That was the last I saw of Chris for a long time. I thought then that his parents had found out, or that he'd moved on to someone else. Some other boy more daring in his romantic actions, more worthy in every way than shy, paranoid John. Two months later, I nearly walked into him in a corner shop. He was stealing packets of biscuits. A grin broke over his face immediately, the same grin he had behind that tree, the same grin from every time he'd coaxed me through my bedroom window at midnight to smoke together in the park. He never smiles like that now, on his shows.

"What for? Y' been sittin' there f' the last half-hour. It'll go out if y' wait much longer. I'm cookin' dinner, before y' ask me."  
"I wasn't going to. Though I'm not entirely sure why we need a campfire if you're cooking on a butane stove."

We left the store, and I asked him where he had been for so long. Apparently, his mother had been in hospital on the other side of the country. Nobody knew what she had. He wasn't close to her, but his father made him stay nearby until she died. I think he looked angry while he told me that. I couldn't claim then, and barely can now, to understand his feelings exactly. But, it seems to me, bringing his family close one last time made it so much worse for everyone.

"Jus' nice, y'know?"  
"Mhm. Well, call me when the food's done."

He took me to this place he'd found. The roof of some building I'd never been in, overlooking the same park from all those other times. Not the tallest building, but the roof of the only one taller couldn't be accessed by the general public. That became our new place. In the park, we couldn't be together in daylight. Here, we could meet at any time convenient for us. I'm not sure why precisely, but the two months apart erased most of my trepidation. Parental evasion became routine, as did the more straightforward lies of "meeting a friend", or "walking on the beach". Carelessness.

"Oh, and we're low on wood. We'll have to get some in the morning."  
"Gotcha."

As it turned out, the taller building next to ours was a law firm where my father would occasionally meet with clients from other businesses. It was one such day, when Chris had me pressed against an exposed air duct, mouth charting my collarbone like a taste-by-numbers. I'm sure you can infer the result, but I'll explain anyway. There are some details you should know.

My father saw us. Window barely big enough to fit a head through, yet somehow he not only focused in on our exact location, but figured out who we were. We didn't notice him, of course. Much harder to spot one man through a distant window among many, than two teenagers in strong daylight on a rooftop. Besides, we were busy.

"Mike? I think it might rain soon. I've stuck another log on anyway."  
"Pfff. Typical. How'd you know?"  
"The air. Can't you tell?"  
"Nobody can, 'cept you, weather-freak."  
"Hilarious. Please tell me the food's done. I'm sick of smelling bacon and not tasting it."

He didn't beat me, if that's what you're thinking. He wasn't that kind of man. He was much, much worse.

"Close. Jus' the beans need doin' a bit more."

When you understand in the most visceral way possible, how disgusting, how wrong, how indescribably foul and above all how beyond repair you are, it sticks. This was his weapon, and my mother was the scope, highlighting each next point of attack.

"I'm coming over, and I'm turning off that stove, and don't you stop me. I can cope with tepid beans. What I can't cope with is not scoffing a large plate of something within the next minute."

Chris' father was more traditional. The next time, and in fact the last time we met, I could barely look at him. At my window again, with the same grin, but this time asking for much more. He wanted me to leave with him. He didn't know where to, and had practically no money. Anywhere was better than here, was his reasoning. I couldn't. His usual persuasions didn't work, and he did eventually give up. He told me he was glad we'd met, and that hopefully we would again. Then he left.

"Fine fine, here's y' damn beans. Don't complain if y' get a hard one."  
"Oh believe me, I won't. Pass the bread, would you?"  
"Five feet away, that bread. There a tent peg through y' legs? Cuz if not, use 'em."

Not twenty seconds later, I heard him scream. His father had caught him sneaking out this time, had followed him here. I could see them on the other side of the street, Chris trying to kick his father's legs out from under him, his father retaliating with every hard edge on his body. I couldn't have gone out there, weak as I was, and for fear of waking my own parents. So I watched in horror.

"Ah, the rain's started properly now. Once we're finished, help me get the stuff inside."  
"Mmph."

Chris' father knew I was there. He glanced at me twice. It was dark, but I know what I saw. Making me a spectator was just as much his goal, if not more so. I wasn't having it. I refused to let them, my parents and his father as one entity, take this final victory. Closing the window, I turned and hid under my bed. Reduced to who I was before. Shy, paranoid John, his plethora of anxieties like the windows of a building, inadequacy watching from within as he lay exposed on a rooftop.

"Yuck, yuck, eeeeugh. Horrible. I'm not going out there again, even if we've left something. What I am going to do, is turn the telly back on. Want to watch with me?"  
"Nah, 'm tired. Keep the volume on low, or I'll wake up an' smack y' one. See y' tomorrow."  
"Night."

I didn't know then if he survived. All I knew was that silence reached me once again, in my hiding place. I assumed the worst, though as you know he lived. I don't think I can describe to you what it was to me, seeing him again twenty years later, moving giant cardboard letters around on television. I was flicking through channels, all I saw was a brief glimpse, and it was enough. All other thought processes replaced by one: back a channel, now.

"Mike, you awake?"  
"Course I'm awake, what with you gettin' up an' stompin' outside. What?"

I want to see his grin again, the way he did it. I want more than anything to hear his clipped laugh, to let him cover me on a rooftop by a park, for him to lead me from by bedroom window every night for the rest of my life. I suppose I'm stuck in the past, then. Oh well, let me be. One day perhaps I will work up the courage to send this story to him. Until then, I'll watch his programs, I'll read his books, and I'll hear him on the radio. So I can finally convince myself. He really made it.

"The rain's stopped."  
"So?"  
"The fire's still glowing."


End file.
